


What Is Love?

by HungryLibrary



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Blood, F/F, but only a little bit things are mostly just quiet, glimpse of happy Angella and Mycah, injuries, introspective fluffy angst, swift wind is adora's magical horse son fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-21 14:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17644556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HungryLibrary/pseuds/HungryLibrary
Summary: In a quiet moment after the battle for Bright Moon, Glimmer wonders.





	What Is Love?

“What’s flying like?” A tiny little Glimmer had asked years ago, before the world tipped on it’s side and scattered her family like game pieces across the unforgiving floor.

Her mom’s giant wings had rustled, shimmering feathers looking too ethereal to make something as solid as sound, but they were strong and warm when she unfurled them with a laugh and wrapped Glimmer up in a cocoon of light.

“Flying feels… a bit like being in love.” Her mom and dad shared a glance over Glimmer’s head. Glimmer could remember glowering.

“Great. So what’s ‘being in love’ feel like?”

Her dad’s face had scrunch up thoughtfully, fingers tugging at his closely trimmed beard.

“Hmm I’d say it’s a bit like... flying.”

Glimmer had groaned as the pair giggled. “You guys are _useless._ ” Her complaint had just made the giggles worse. “I’m asking aunt Casta next time she visits!” She’d half declared, half warned, and that at least had gotten her mom to sober up. "You absolutely will _not._ " The immortal Queen's look of horror only got dad laughing so hard he actually teared up. Glimmer, scowl melting away as her dad scooped her up to use as a shield from mom's glare, had given up and let the laughter bubbled up in her too.   

If she’d ever gotten a real answer out of them that day Glimmer couldn’t remember it.

Maybe that had been the real answer though.

-

“What’s flying like?” An older Glimmer in battered armor and singed robes asked the talking winged unicorn she was currently using to prop up her battered and singed body.

Swift Wind’s sides heaved thoughtfully, ears flicking.

“It’s hard work.” He answered slowly. “Harder than running sometimes, if the winds not blowing juuuust right. And sometimes even now I mess up and stall out and end up making a rough landing.”

Sitting next to Glimmer, Adora smirked her trademark good-humored smirk. “You crash?”

Glimmer’s stomach swopped. She pulled her eyes away from her Adora’s smile just to prove to herself that she could.

It was a lot harder than it should have been.

“I do NOT. Crash.” An equine snort punctuated the correction. “I glide at a sharp angle towards the ground until something stops me.”

Glimmer gave her own snort, poking the end of her dad’s staff at the smashed up ground. “So you mean, until you _crash_.”

“It’s not crashing!”

“It really is.”

Adora leaned back as she said it. She didn’t wince as her back stretched and pressed against Swift Wind’s shoulder, but Glimmer did.

Reflexively Glimmer opened and closed her right hand, remembering the warm sticky wetness that’d made her pull back from their earlier group hug. The whole world had been put on mute as she looked curiously down at her red palm and then matched it, horrifyingly, to stain on Adora’s back, almost invisible against her Horde jacket.

It had been blood. A lot of blood. The first time she’d ever seen Adora really bleeding- So different from seeing She-Ra bleed.

Worse. So much worse.

There was still a bit of Adora’s dried blood stuck to Glimmer’s thumb. She scraped at it furiously with blunt nails. If only she could just as easily erase the cuts from Adora’s back, if only She-Ra’s healing powers weren’t so finicky, if only the Moonstone could heal wounds like it had Glimmer’s magic and glitches.

If only she hadn’t seen Adora’s skin torn up and ripped open like that, watched her hold perfectly, deliberately still as disinfectant bubbled frothy pink from each of the ten long claw marks.

Adora could pretend not to notice the pain. She could do that now, acting like every move didn’t tug on her bandages as she slid over an inch and pressed her arm to Glimmer’s shoulder, she could hide it just like she’d done when she’d quietly and guiltily asked Glimmer to slip away for a moment and help clean the wounds so no one else would have to know.

She could try all she wanted to shrug it off. But she couldn’t take back what Glimmer had seen. The way the ground had fallen out from under her.

Not that Glimmer hadn’t already known Adora wasn’t invincible. She’d known, she’d held a hurt or unconscious Adora in her arms too many times not to know by now. They were both flesh and blood and this was a war they was fighting on the front lines of. People got hurt in wars. It happened. She’d seen it plenty of times on other people and she’d see it again. Glimmer knew all that.

Somehow though, she just hadn’t thought about it before now.

Blood dripping from Adora. A battle She-Ra couldn’t win. Them almost losing.

What _she_ would lose if Adora ever-

“So what does flying actually feel like anyway?” Adora asked curiously. 

Glimmer crushed her stupid useless thoughts in an equally useless fist and tried to tune back into the world. She looked up. She froze. Gray eyes were already waiting for her, Adora’s eyebrows drawn down with worry that didn’t match her carefree voice.

_You okay?_

A hand lifted from the sword on Adora’s lap a made a little motion towards her, hovering uncertainly just over one of Glimmer’s scraped up knees.

One smile could wipe that worry away like it’d never been. The catch, it’d have to be a real smile or it’d just make the worry worse instead, and Glimmer… Glimmer slumped where she sat, cheek smooshing against Adora’s shoulder as she leaned in and forced her fist open again. The hand she pressed over Adora’s shook a little. She couldn’t hide it.

_No._

And she didn’t want to.

“Well, like I said before being rudely interrupted and argued with, it’s hard work.” Swift Wind’s tone was all thoughtfulness, all attention on the question. “Sometimes it even hurts.”

Adora gave her knee a strong squeeze, callouses catching on the raw spots and making them sting. Glimmer pressed their hands down tighter. She wondered how bad Adora’s cuts actually felt. She wondered if this feeling, the heavy, suffocating, helplessness in her chest, was part of why Adora had run off to try and find a way to heal her when faced with the glitches.

“Is it worth it?”

Glimmer hoped Swift Wind was too busy mulling things over to notice how small her voice was right then, or the way Adora went tense.

Wings rustled. They both flinched closer together as shadow fell over them and relaxed again at the sight of brilliantly colored feathers unfurling above, deep blue and gold and pink, feathers all carefully preened into place.

“Oh it is so _totally_ worth it.” Swift Wind spread his wings out impressively, clearly bursting with pride. “I’ve seen things I never even thought to think I’d never see. And even when it hurts or it feels like I’m just gonna drop out of the sky like a rock if I have to flap even one more time, it’s still the most incredible thing in the whole world.”

He paused for a second. In that second Glimmer heard a ghost of long dead laughter, a shared joke flying right over her head.

Love feels like flying, and flying feels like-

“It’s freedom.”

Swift Wind decided, flaring his wings one more time before folding them. “It’s feeling that I could fly into the sunset even if I really can’t. The chance of crash- Uhhh- _landing hard_ if I mess up just makes it better each time I don’t. And I’m getting better at it every day! It’s great.”

It was pretty great, Glimmer supposed, running a thumb across the scars on Adora’s knuckles. It was pretty terrifying too and she still wasn’t so sure what her parents had been laughing about.

“That's good to hear, Swift Wind.”

A weight pressed against the top of her head. The familiar angle of Adora’s jaw and the also familiar puff of air tickling Glimmer’s hair as Adora breathed in and sighed out, just like she did every night right before nodding off.

“Makes me feel better about the whole accidentally hitting you with a magical sword beam thingy and getting chased by an angry mob.” Adora mused. “Though… that last part was completely your fault.”

Swift Wind nickered. “Not sorry. Purple is terrible color on you anyway.”

“Hey!”

Glimmer and Adora yelped, mirror images of indignation. Swift wind was unrepented.

“Well it is. Your color is red, or maybe a light blue.”

“I’ll accept the blue thing.” How could Glimmer not when she sometimes tired to think up excuses to borrow Adora her cape again? Curse her for not appreciating it the fully the first time Adora had worn it. “But the purple comment is a baseless lie.”

Swift Wind’s horn lifted in distain.

“I speak only the truth.”

With a grumble Glimmer snuggled more fully into Adora, settling in.

“You speak blasphemy. Purple looks good on _everything,_ including my girlfriend.”

Adora chuckled sleepily and spread her fingers, letting Glimmer’s slip between her own as they wove their hands together. The heaviness in Glimmer’s chest loosened as they squeezed each other tight.

Freedom. Maybe the feelings swirling in her gut these days were kind of like freedom- Uncertain and scary, amazing and terrifying, paralyzing and also strangely full of hope. Maybe the irony of something hurting so much and being so wonderful at the same time had been what her mom and dad had been laughing about.

It did kinda make her want to laugh now. Mainly because her only other option was crying and she was too warm and cozy for that. The breathing under her ear was slowing though, getting deeper, so she went with a silent smile instead as her eyes drifted shut.  

“I wasn’t talking about your imaginary girlfriend.” Swift Wind chattered on, tossing his head imperiously. “I was talking about how your favorite color looks on Ador- Wait.”

Neck snapped around he stared at them.

“What? No. What? _What?_ ” The former horse spluttered. _“_ You’re dating my _MOM!?_ ”

But Adora had already dozed off, and Glimmer, like always, was right there with her.


End file.
